


Last Summer

by Homicidal Whispers (HomicidalWhispers)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-26
Updated: 2012-10-26
Packaged: 2017-11-17 02:46:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/546790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomicidalWhispers/pseuds/Homicidal%20Whispers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Last summer, after I came back from a week long trip to South Carolina, there wasn’t much for me to do. I had no summer job, my classes were over, and I had no homework to speak of. I spent a further week doing nothing before I decided it had to change – I had to find something to spend my time on. I found someone instead, and that's when we first met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Summer

Last summer, after I came back from a week long trip to South Carolina, there wasn’t much for me to do. I had no summer job, my classes were over, and I had no homework to speak of. I spent a further week doing nothing before I decided it had to change – I had to find something to do.

The first time I decided to go to the city, it was on impulse. To me, Manhattan will always be “the city” and it’s the same for any other person you’ll ever meet from Brooklyn; when we say “the city” we only ever mean one place. I dressed and left the house before it was even six in the morning, to my mother’s understandable confusion. I walked the two blocks to the train in silence, headphones in my ears while I watched the orange begin to crest over the sky. The station was nearly empty when I arrived, bereft of the usual teens heading to school. Instead, I saw busy-looking adults; they all wore three-piece suits and matching briefcases, or mused scrubs, all checking their watches with harried expressions. Some people did the morning crossword or read a novel -- most drank their coffee or else tried to catch another few moments of sleep. I accepted a paper myself, although I do not recall actually reading it.

The novelty of taking a train had worn off after three years of taking it every morning to my high school, but I enjoyed looking out of the window anyway. I liked watching people on the streets, ants scurrying aimlessly from my perspective. When we descended underground, I switched to watching the insides of the tunnels, waiting eagerly for the next creative tag of graffiti art. I endured perhaps forty-five minutes of this before my stop came.

The first thing I always noticed about the city was the Starbucks. You couldn’t go two blocks without seeing one, nor two steps without seeing someone with a cup of the stuff. The next thing was the general aura of rushing; when I left Brooklyn, the streets had been empty, yet less than an hour later in the city, people hurried in every direction.

I had a moment of dizziness and disorientation before I collected myself (because god-forbid I look like a tourist). I bought a cup of herbal tea from a street-side vendor and started walking, with no destination in mind. I walked four blocks in every direction and ended up exactly where I started. Finally, I alighted on a little cafe. It was a tiny thing, so small that I didn’t see it until I was in front of it. In the heat-fogged window pane, pastries and cakes were lined up enticingly.

Compared to the sedate exterior, the inside was catastrophic. There was a cacophony of noise: dozens of people calling out orders, the chefs furiously handing over dishes, the manager attempting to facilitate, the cashier working the till with a clang, clang, clang. Obviously, the majority of people in there were workers and college go-ers, who just wanted to grab a quick breakfast and go. None actually stayed.

But I, having nowhere to go, did. I was the only one seated, that one awkward teenager whose feet could barely touch the floor. Some looked over at me, because of how out of place I was, no doubt, and I looked back. I can recall vividly the lady with the white blouse and the sweet face who spilt her drink down her front (her comments at that were not sweet at all), the man in the checkered tie who triumphantly finished New York Times’s daily Sudoku puzzle while on line. I can recall the poster signed by E. B. White above the cash register and the fans turning lazing on the dim blue ceiling. And I can recall with vivid clarity the moment he walked through the door.

It was only by coincidence that I saw him, in truth; I looked to the door just in time to watch him come through it. I couldn’t see much more than his clothes from that distance; his shirt and jeans were just plain enough to scream designer and a pair of obnoxious red Beats hung around his neck. He joined the line as a waiter took my order for a drink. After she smiled politely and walked away, I headed to the bathroom. When I came back, Red Headphones was sitting at my booth. I looked pointedly at my messenger strewn across the table; he smiled and waved me over.

Confused, I sat, facing the stranger. He had already made himself comfortable, removed the bookbag on his shoulders, unplugged the iPod, and slouching into the seat. I could see all the features I couldn’t see before. He had an unrealistically perfect face, complete with almond-shaped gray eyes. His hair was an untamed mess of black curls, less ‘artfully mused’ and more ‘I literally just rolled out of bed.’

Before I had time to think of something to say to Headphones, the waitress came back. “I’ll have a Western omelette with cheese, and could I get some coffee with that?” he said and looked expectantly at me.

“Belgian waffle,” I managed. The waitress jotted down the order and left.

“I’m Gamzee,” he said once she was out of earshot.

“Tavros.”

“Tavros,” he repeated, drawing out the syllables. “A cute name to match a cute motherfucker.”

Unsure what to say to that, I answered, “Thanks?”

“I go to Hunter,” he said, nodding to the college building I could see out of the window. He continued without pause, ignoring my awkwardness and acting like nothing was amiss in this scenario.

“You’re not late for class, are you?” I asked. Almost immediately, I thought it was an incredibly stupid thing to ask, but Gamzee seemed to disagree.

“Probably,” he answered, and made no move to leave. He spoke of trivial things while he ate, describing his professor, complaining of the paper he still needed to write, recounting a joke his friend had told him. He cursed more than I was used to, but also clearly meant no offense by it. His entire demeanor was calm, in fact. Nearly half an hour later, he stood. “Class,” he said in explanation. Then he leaned over, kissed my cheek, and left. After he was out of eyeshot, I realized he had left enough money to cover the entire bill.

In retrospect, I should have been more cautious, more worried about this stranger’s intentions. But I wasn’t. I was bemused and bewildered and, above all, certain that I would never see Gamzee again. Even so, I returned to the little cafe for the next three days, sitting at the same table by myself and quietly people-watching. I saw him on the fourth day.

Or, more accurately, he saw me. I don’t know how long he had been behind me before he tapped me on the shoulder and grinned down at me. The thought frightened me slightly, but I assured myself that my imagination was running away from me and leaving my common sense lonely. I was right outside of the college, after all; it was more likely that he had spotted me while entering or leaving.

“I was heading to the cafe?” I said, posing it as a question.

“That’s a sweet ass shop,” he said agreeably. “But this fucker’s got the taste for pizza.”

“Pizza at six in the morning?”

“I know a place," he said. "It's a bit of a walk, but we could go there if you think you can handle it?"

I used crutches clamped at my forearm to walk. I had long since gotten used to their presence, but others were often uneasy around me for it. Not Gamzee, though. His tone was neither pitying nor uncomfortable, and it was a relief to escape the false sympathy for once. I thought for a moment. "I can handle it."

He grinned and shoved his hands in his pockets before walking away with purpose. "Tavros, huh? Never heard a name like that before. There a story behind it?"

I told him about my parents; that my name was a mix of my mother's first name, Tavia, and her maiden name, Rosley; that my father was the one to choose it, right before he went to Afghanistan; that my parents were only still married because they never saw each other; that my mother, born and raised in Mexico, could still barely speak English. He listened to my rambling attentively, nodding along and commenting whenever appropriate. I surprised myself; I was generally introverted: shy, quiet, and stammering. I told him this also.

“I guess I bring out the best in you, then,” he replied and we shared a private smile.

I must sound like a love struck fool, waxing poetic about a stranger I knew nothing about. You’d be correct if you thought so. I fell hard, even if I didn’t recognize it then. I fell hard and fast, like teenagers are wont to do, and I’m not afraid to admit that it was stupid. But I fell anyway, and Gamzee did nothing to stop me.

I recognized that this was a date when we arrived. There was nothing special about the store that caused this revelation; it was just another easily missed hole-in-the-wall restaurant. But we slid into a booth facing each other. He casually took my hand across table while we perused the menu. Gamzee had fallen just as hard as I had, and he didn’t have my excuse of being a teen to blame for it.

“I like the sausage,” he said when I couldn’t decide on a topping.

“I don’t eat meat,” I replied and blushed when I thought about it. He leered at me and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was intentional. I decided it was. “I mean, I’m a vegetarian,” I clarified.

“Yeah?” he said. “Why?”

“When I was younger, my dad told me about a pet goat he used to have when he was a kid in Jamaica. One day it was slaughtered and served at a wedding without him knowing; he ate his own curried pet and no one told him until it was done. Back then, I thought it was the saddest thing I’d ever heard and declared I’d never eat an animal again. I was six then, and I haven’t since then.” I carefully skirted around my age and hoped he wouldn’t ask me. “I like animals, all of them, and they like me.”

“ _I_ like you,” he said, and began contemplating the merits of ordering Sprite over Pepsi out loud, like he hadn’t just wrecked me.

We ordered and we ate and we laughed.  He wasn’t the first person I’d ever went on a date with – there had been Aradia, a brief trial with Equius, the thing with Vriska that had been doomed to fail from the start. But with Gamzee, I felt like I could be myself. I wasn’t embarrassed, my self-esteem issues didn’t get in the way. He had a kind of casual eloquence that I hadn’t seen in any of the others and I was attracted to it like a moth to a flame.

“Will I see you tomorrow?” I asked after we ate. I had insisted on paying today, since he covered it the time before.

“I don’t have class tomorrow,” he said. He picked my pen off of the table and, completely bypassing my notepad that sat next to it, scrawled a number on my arm. “But here, call me. You can come by me tomorrow, if you’re all up and fucking willing.”

The phrasing caused all manner of lecherous thoughts to enter my mind, but I pushed them away. “Sure,” I answered. He smiled at me again, all lazy beauty and I fell even harder.

That’s how we met, almost a year ago. Our first anniversary is in a few days, now, and we’re still going strong, perhaps stronger now that my age is no longer an issue. I’ll be attending college as an English major come September, dorming with his best friend, Karkat (film major), whom I’ve since met. He’s a bit shouty, but we get along well enough.

It’s nice. And each time I pass by that little cafe on my way to class, I can’t help but remember the strange little coincidence that caused this all to begin.

**Author's Note:**

> Essentially what happened here was I was supposed to write a paragraph for English and I got completely carried away. Next thing I knew, I had three written pages and a new GamTav plot (and also no idea what happened in that class when I left). On the plus side, I got to write first person, which I haven’t done in years.
> 
> If it seems like it was cut short at the end, it's because it was.


End file.
